We had a great time in Ohio! I love seeing everyone, especially the kids! They are all growing so fast! Here is a picture of the grand kids my parents have so far. The 3 oldest belong to my older sister Jenny and the 2 youngest belong to my younger sister Chelsea.

I thought that they all looked so cute in their red and black!

On Christmas Eve my siblings, their spouses, and their kids all get together at my parents house. We have a gift exchange, go to the Christmas Eve service at church and make personal pizzas for dinner. It is always so much fun! Since my parents have so many kids our family is huge. There are 6 of us and 4 of us are married and having kids. All together there are 17 of us with 2 on the way. As you can tell it can be a tight squeeze!

We have lots of fun though!

And how can I forget these 2 grand-dogs! Here is Chloe and my brother’s puppy Tyson.

It took some patience to get them to sit like this! But how cute are they!

Oh and one great experience at Christmas was seeing my niece Isabel laugh. She had apparently just started laughing the night before and I was able to capture a picture of her. She is 2 months old now. Spending time with her just makes me even more anxious to see and hold Piper!

We had a great trip to Ohio! We won’t talk about how horrible Marley was because I would like to forget it. The rest of the trip was just wonderful!

We left out Wednesday and got there just in time to relax and go to bed. Thursday was great. We went to my aunts house for Thanksgiving. The food was wonderful as always. When my family gets together we play games. We had to all try to squeeze around the table to play but that didn’t slow us down. My cousins were there that I haven’t seen in years and it was so much fun for them to met Blake and catch up. We were very close as children because they used to spend the summers with us and now as adults we hardly see each other. They live in Florida and I always miss them so much!

Friday we did a small amount of shopping (1 store) and just enjoyed the day hanging out with my siblings. That night my sister and her family went to go see Christmas lights with us. We went to Clifton Mill which has the best lights I have ever seen! After that we went to Young’s and ate ice cream. Seeing the lights with my nieces and nephew just made me so excited for when we can do that with our kids!

Saturday we went into Springfield to eat and found ourselves taking a tour of the city. It has beautiful architecture throughout the city and I thought Blake would enjoy seeing it. We drove around and looked at some very neat buildings. They even have a legendary Frank Loyd Wright home there!

Later that night my mom cooked a small Thanksgiving diner and then my siblings came over to play some games with us. We had a great weekend! Now I can’t wait til Christmas!

Okay so maybe this week really just involves 2 babies, and no I am not saying I am having twins. My little sister Chelsea is due this week with her second baby. They are expecting a girl. It was fun being pregnant at the same time as her for a few months! My other sister took a picture of us together when I was in Ohio but I don’t have a copy yet. (hint hint Jen!)

I am really hoping that my sister will not go into labor until after Tuesday! We are finally going to be painting all the final coats in the living room, dinning room, and kitchen. This means a whole week of painting and fumes that I can’t be around. So Blake is shipping me off to Ohio. I am so excited because I really wanted to be there when my sis has her baby! Now I have a good chance! Her due date is the 18th but she has already started to have some small contractions!

I am not looking forward to the 3 hour drive by myself. I am taking Chloe to keep me company but she can’t keep me from getting worn out. I haven’t even unpacked completely from our last trip and now I have to pack again. It is easier just packing for myself though! I am really bummed out that Blake is staying behind. I hate going without him!

And the other baby comes in this week when I have my first Midwife appointment on Tuesday. I am really excited to see what all she is going to do. I really don’t know exactly what to expect. I will post a little something to let everyone know how it goes! I will be heading out Tuesday after the appointment so please pray for my trip.

Oh and when I get home I will finally be able to post some pictures of this place looking more like a home. I will finally get to decorate!!!!!

I talked to sister earlier today and she informed me that they lost power from Ike. They live in the Dayton, Ohio area. They had 75mph winds and lost lots of trees in the neighborhood as well as power. They have been without since Sunday afternoon. They also are without water because they have a well. My grandma and aunt and uncle live in the same area so they are without power too. Luckily my family has lots of other family within a couple miles that do have power. They say it may be the end of the week before they get any power back.

My sister and her husband have 3 little kids and they of course think it is all fun and games. They tried to tell the kids that they had to use the water in the pipes very sparingly so they couldn’t wash their hands, brush their teeth, or flush the toilet. Then my brother-in-law laughed and said “Just keep doing things they way you already do.” They are young kids that are trying to make good habits; this might throw them off course for awhile.

At least they are able to laugh at the situation for now, I am sure their patience will wear as the week goes on. Luckily the weather is cooling so they can stay cool too. They didn’t get any damage to their house and neither did anyone else I know. What a blessing!

Friday morning we were out working on the fence Blake is building when I tried to convince him to take me to Louisville to go shopping. I am still searching for matching chairs for our dinning room table and I wanted to go to the Pottery Barn were they have a table just like ours. Blake insisted that he didn’t want to go there. So I said the only other one was in Cincinnati. So surprisingly he said then lets just go up there and stay the weekend with your parents. I was a bit homesick last week so he really knew it would mean a lot to me!

We quickly decided to let our trip be a surprise to everyone. I couldn’t wait to see my mom’s face when we walked in. Blake took me home to do laundry and pack while he finished working and then we left when he came home.

We really needed a break from everything because we have been working ourselves to death. We didn’t have much to do on the house because we are waiting for all of the doors to come in right now so it worked out well.

When we got to my parents house my mom was so surprised she was confused. She couldn’t figure out why I was there or how I got there. We had a great visit with everyone and enjoyed a relaxing weekend! Saturday my little sister and her daughter went to the outlet mall with us. There was a Pottery Barn store there. They had the chairs that I had seen online but we decided the were a little too casual for the table. We ended up having a great time shopping anyway! I got a few shirts at the Ann Taylor store for a great price and Blake got a few sports t-shirts.

Sunday we went to church and my brother-in-law preached since the pastor was out of town. He had a great sermon on the biblical view of abortion and homosexuality. After church we went out to eat with my sisters and their families. That evening we had dinner with my parents then went hiking at a local park. It was all so much fun!

We did a bit more chair shopping while we were there and we think we may have found one at Pier1. We are at least hopeing it will work until we can afford something else.

The zoo was really hot! But we had lots of fun. Even though it was really hot we did get to see lots of animals. I haven’t been there in years so I felt like it was the first time there. They have changed a few things since then. I did happen to get a few pictures.

We really liked to watch the Elephants.

Here we are trying to cool off in the shade.

More elephants!

Sigfried and Roy’s white tigers!

The baby giraffe exhibit just opened the day we were there. They are supposed to come and eat right out of your hand but they were just a bit shy on opening day. They sure were cute though!

After the Zoo we stopped by the new Ikea store. I didn’t find any chairs there but we had fun looking at everything especially the baby furniture! No I don’t have anything to tell anyone but maybe (hopefully) in the next year! We have to get the house finished first.

The rest of our trip revolved around going to my brother’s graduation on Saturday and his party on Sunday.

My grandma made such a pretty and yummy cake! She formed the roses out of sugar!

The visit was great! Oh and how could I forget…we ordered our kitchen cabinets too. My mother helped me design the kitchen and we bought them from my Dad’s store. It will be about 3 or 4 weeks before they are delivered. My parents are coming down to help us install. I am so excited because they haven’t made the trip down before.

I am supposed to be packing the car and getting ready to leave in the morning. Blake is at school and so that leaves me to do all the work. Somehow it always works out this way whenever we go away. So I am washing clothes and cleaning out the car…

It is weird because we are leaving the dogs behind. I feel really bad because I know they will miss us. I will miss Chloe so much! I have never been away from her since we brought her home over a year ago; she is my baby! We moved their crates in the house and Blake’s parents will let them out and feed them. We decided to let them sleep there tonight. It feels so weird not having them here!

BUT since we don’t have them with us this weekend we are going to go to the Cincinnati Zoo. I am excited because we never really get to do things like that. Also we are going to stop at the new Ikea store that was just built between Cincinnati and Dayton. Hopefully I can find some chairs to match my new table!